Big Town and Marlon St. Julien defeated Chilled and Antonio Lopez Castanon in a determined stretch duel to take home top honors in the feature, a $41,000 allowance optional claiming event, at Hoosier Park Racing & Casino on August 10.

Leaving from post three, Big Town was unhurried out of the gate. Adulare broke alertly in the abbreviated field of six and went to the front under Fernando De La Cruz. Jockey Marlon St. Julien relaxed his mount on the outside while trading back and forth with Adulare for the lead. Chilled was also well placed four wide in third. Adulare went a quarter in :23.58, as the order remained unchanged down the backside.

Adulare continued to call the shots, setting a moderate pace of :47.97 as St. Julien kept Big Town in perfect striking position in the three path. When the field hit the turn after three-quarters in 1:12.13, Chilled began to challenge Adulare on the outside but Big Town would not go away. The dark brown gelding ranged up to take the lead when asked to win a long stretch duel by three-parts of a length over Chilled. The heavily favored, Northern Candyride under Rodney Prescott remained off the pace for much of the race but made a bid late in the lane to round out the tri-fecta. Big Town returned $10.00 to his backers.

“This horse races much better over the dirt, so I thought he would be good here,” winning trainer Tim Glyshaw noted. “The racing style here fits him, it seems to be more speed favoring and he likes to be in the race. The plan was to get the lead but he didn’t break well. Marlon (St. Julien) did a great job with this horse tonight, he sat patiently on him and that basically won the race for us.”

The final time for the mile and one-sixteenth distance was 1:43.99 over the fast dirt track.

With his third victory in 13 starts, the 4-year-old gelded son of Speightstown improved his lifetime bankroll to $122,581 for owner Sure Shot Stables, Inc. Big Town was bred in Kentucky by Calumet Farm.